Grandmaster Lee
Grandmaster Lee was born April 19, 1938 in Anjoung Village, a small village south of Seoul, in South Korea. In his youth he helped his family farm rice. South Korea at this time was in turmoil due to war. The streets Grandmaster Lee grew up in were rough and fighting in the streets was a daily occurrence.
In 1951, Grandmaster Lee joined the Tang Soo Do Moo Duk Kwan under Master Choi, his first instructor. In 1962, Grandmaster Lee established the first Tang Soo Do School in San Diego, California; the Tang Soo Do Karate Association.
When Grandmaster Lee traveled to the United States, he was stationed at Camp Pendleton, Oceanside, California. He yearned to learn the American way of living and incorporating teaching Tang Soo Do students how to become better individuals rather than better fighters. His martial art classes were taught in English because Grandmaster Lee himself was eager to learn the English language.
Grandmaster Lee always encouraged his students to have educational goals and supplemented his teachings with strenuous exercises. Grandmaster Lee spent his 35 years of martial art development devoted to the teaching and advancement of the Korean art of Tang Soo Do Moo Duk Kwan. By 1965 he then spent the next 20 years redefining Tang Soo Do as he understood it. The culmination of all his research and development blossomed into his personal philosophy, which he named Tangsoology.
Grandmaster Lee taught his Tangsoology style to hundreds of students from the mid 1960's until the time of his passing. Grandmaster Jong H. Lee passed away on November 28, 1985. He held the rank of Seventh Dan in the Soo Bahk Do Moo Duk Kwan. In 1979 Grandmaster Lee was presented the rank of Eighth Dan by the Black Belt Committee of the Institute of Tangsoology and was later promoted to Tenth Dan in 1985 in Memoriam.
The art of Tangsoology was founded by Grandmaster Jong Hyan Lee (b. 1938 -1985 d.) in 1974 in San Diego, California. Tangsoology translates as the methodical study of Tang Soo Do Moo Duk Kwan.